The Net Right

(This article was originally published in the Technology Supplement of the Sunday Times of Malta in November 2009)

Earlier this month we saw the release on various platforms of the second instalment of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2(COD:MW2). Whilst my time availability to complete the single player levels is limited, I am already looking forward to indulge into some HD multiplayer mayhem. But apart from solid nerves and accurate shooting skills I will also require another important element to make my experience truly enjoyable: a fast and reliable broadband connection.

Whilst my personal requirements might sound trivial, they underline the important fact that broadband is essential for our lives. Electronic commerce, remote gaming, financial services and all the areas of excellence that Malta wants to develop are all dependent on this lifeline. I am not talking about availability here, I am talking about quality levels.

The sudden disruptions registered last year in international connectivity caused widespread havoc in Malta. The remote gaming industry was one of the biggest industries which were hit giving rise to an escalation of claims being made by gaming companies due to the millions of euros lost in bets during those crucial hours.

The mushrooming of submarine cables connecting Malta to the grid has finally ensured that the nation can react quickly to those sad situations where, for instance, a vessel between Malta and Sicily has the misfortune of tearing a submarine cable.

Recent local legislative amendments have also put in place a mechanism whereby providers of international bandwidth have to have redundancy schemes in place with their competitors in situations where outages occur and therefore transfer traffic through another cable. All of this is very laudable and ensures that as much as possible the damage to the ICT industry is minimized. But is this enough?

The Cisco sponsored studies relating to internet availability and quality in Malta recently published can be easily summarised as follows: We need to do more. Even though our internet penetration is high, quality of service needs to catch up and quickly.

Finland, a country which has always been a leader in technology has just promulgated a new law by which access to the internet has become a legal right. By summer 2010 each and every citizen in Finland will have a legal right to a one megabit broadband connection. The Finns didn't stop there however. By the end of 2015 the Finnish government also has plans to make it a legal right for each citizen to expect a 100 megabit connection. So come next summer, if you are in a far flung corner in cold Finland, rest assured that you will have broadband access.

Earlier this year, France has also moved towards this direction making the internet a fundamental human right whereby the French Constitutional Court ruled that access to the Internet is a basic human right even though it did not delve into broadband issues and fell short of discussing broadband access.

Surely, availability is essential in an always-on world but Malta needs to ensure that quality of service is attained. There is no point in advertising mega-speed internet services when at the end of the day the user would only experience a tiny fraction of the speeds advertised.

One might consider placing the quality of broadband internet at par with your normal phone and thereby creating universal service obligations on internet service providers, making it a legal obligation on service providers to provide internet services at quality levels which have to be met, kept and above all guaranteed. The promulgation of legal service levels on providers of international connectivity should also be analysed and considered. This might be a good solution to ensure that slow internet speeds are truly a thing of the past even though it will not be a joy ride getting there. Investments in technology will need to be made in order to guarantee that the Maltese grid is future proof.

Legislation needs to enshrine what are our rights also relating to the internet. The quality of the internet at our disposal, be it a gaming company, an electronic commerce provider or someone with two hours to waste fiddling around with his next-generation games console should be established and legally protected.

Making Malta a centre of ICT excellence does not solely depend on the availability of skilled human resources but also requires that our technological backbone is ready for the challenge. We should therefore actively consider following Finland and issue laws which ensure not only that Maltese citizens get a service they deserve but also investors who are eyeing Malta as a possible destination to do business from can have the piece of mind that our smart island is not only always-on but fast. Competition in the global village will also depend on our success to meet this challenge.

So whilst I am eagerly awaiting to spend some time immersing myself in COD:MW2, I hope that it will be through a good quality internet connection and that I will not need to wait for MW3.